The camping movements of the Union for Reform Judaism and the National Ramah Commission of The Jewish Theological Seminary have announced a joint initiative to develop a year-round Service Corps program for camp staff alumni. Participants in the Service Corps will apply their experience, talents and skills to create camp-style programming for North American synagogue youth, and to recruit more children to attend camp.
A new grant will be shared equally by the two largest synagogue-based Jewish camping movements in North America. The program will include the training and support of up to 80 young adult educators, who will serve in part-time youth leadership roles at Conservative and Reform congregations throughout North America. The educators will work actively on camp recruitment and will help … [Read more...]

In an effort to redesign the Conservative Synagogue movement in North America, the USCJ - in coordination with Hayom - have come together with a consensus plan for the future. The plan emphasizes not only a new way of doing things, but change, responsiveness and transparency.
Addressed is the way Conservative Judaism see itself and presents itself, change in the way United Synagogue interacts with kehillot/synagogues, brands itself, and a new approach to movement education - in schools, camps and with their youth movements. It stresses USCJ’s commitment to total openness, to providing every opportunity for feedback, and to developing movement consensus. Organizationally this plan will manifest in USCJ operational change, in downsizing, in new governance, in a new leadership and a new means of … [Read more...]

Make Yourself a Friend at a Jewish Summer Camp
by Amy L. Sales
The Ramah camps, a jewel of the Conservative movement, set their clocks to Ramah time, which is an hour off from time in the real world. When I first visited these camps when I was working on a national study of Jewish summer camps, I found the shift curious. Summer days are long and lazy and although people at camp are aware of meal time, swim time, and tefillah time, they seem unconcerned with 10 o’clock versus 11.
I have come, however, to appreciate the symbolism of the time change. It is another way in which camp is set apart from life back home, separate from the rest of the world, a cultural island. It also reinforces the message that camp is not about time. It’s about life lived in the here and now.
The research, … [Read more...]

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